Even if Jack Ma were able to buy Yahoo he would likely face operational challenges beyond fixing the current mess. For example, would most users feel comfortable having their data in the hands of a Chinese company? Competitors would probably relish the opportunity to market against Yahoo’s new overlords.

The more likely outcome is that Alibaba works with Silverlake and other firms in a joint bid that gives Jack Ma the China and perhaps Asia assets but little to no ownership in the US and possibly rest of the world (ROW) entity.